After Dancer’s months of paradigm-shift training, Darrow sits the Institute’s admittance exam. He calmly steals a neighbor’s stylus to stop her tapping, and a Proctor later approves of the tactic. In the hall, a razor-edged Gold sneers “Cutter,” and Cassius au Bellona sweeps in, amiably introducing himself, probing Darrow’s test results, and inviting him to Agea’s pleasure houses. Cassius’s pedigree and his family’s rivalry with Augustus flash on Darrow’s datapad, yet Darrow judges many testing Golds as pampered children.

The physical evaluations are brutal and clinical. Darrow endures oxygen deprivation, extreme temperatures, high gravity, and violent motion, then dons a biometric suit for exhaustive strength, endurance, and reflex measurements. His Helldiver reflexes force technicians to escalate tests until a projectile finally floors him. He leaves feeling measured as a body, not a person.

In the locker room, Darrow hears the tune Eo died to and follows it to the girl who mocked his riding. Surprised and flustered by her beauty and the memory the song evokes, he retreats; he notices she blushes too, leaving the encounter unresolved but unsettling.

On the shuttle home over a scarred, terraformed Mars, Darrow questions Matteo about the Institute. Matteo outlines three outcomes—Peerless Scarred, Graduates, and the Shamed—and emphasizes that the true game is patronage: winning a powerful benefactor through performance. Urged to excel, Darrow imagines the leverage of future command and what such power could mean for his cause.